Symantec Global internet Security threat report

Overall Rank

Table 22. Top countries of spam origin Source: Symantec

Percentage

2009

2008

23%

25%

11%

4%

4%

2%

4%

2%

4%

3%

3%

4%

3%

5%

3%

6%

3%

1%

2%

1%

Brazil ranked second for originating spam in 2009 with 11 percent of the total observed by Symantec. this is a significant increase from 2008, when Brazil accounted for 4 percent of the total and was ranked fifth. the spam increase noted in Brazil can be attributed to the increased availability of broadband connections there. there has been an enormous increase in investment in it infrastructure, making Brazil one of the fastest growing global it markets.203 this has enabled huge growth in broadband services in Brazil—a recent report showed that broadband adoption in Brazil had 16 percent growth in 2009.204 in addition, as previously discussed in the “threat Activity” section of this report, Brazil ranked first for the country hosting the most spam zombies, a rank which it also held in 2008. the substantial growth in

broadband availability, along with a thriving market in computer sales,205 for spammers looking for a platform to launch their spam attacks.

provides a prime environment

india ranked third for originating spam observed by Symantec in 2009, accounting for 4 percent of the total. in 2008, india ranked 15th with 2 percent of the total. Similar to Brazil, india has recently seen unprecedented levels of growth in both it infrastructure and broadband development.206 Although india’s broadband penetration is still expanding to meet its burgeoning economy and large population, it is estimated that india will continue to rise in the rankings for broadband connectivity in the coming future.207

Spam delivered by botnets

in 2009, botnets became the dominant force in terms of distributing not only spam, but also malicious code and phishing scams. the processing power of large botnets allows them to generate high volumes of spam. the distributed processing power of botnets makes them an ideal platform for launching large-scale spam campaigns. Because of their distributed nature, even taking down a large number of individual bots has little effect on the percentage of spam delivered by bots.